One moan I get a lot from people who just don’t get it, is that silicone is too expensive for them. I give all of my myriad of selling points, I explain it clearly, but frequently it just comes down to “I am a poor [insert term here] and I just can’t swing $50+ on a singular sex toy that I may or may not like”. I hear you, I do. I dealt with the same feelings back before I started reviewing sex toys. Hell, I even feel it now sometimes.

But Tantus has done something awesome. They’re doing something good for the environment and something good for you. But for those wondering how the Grab Bag section works and why and whatnot (I can’t be the only knowledge geek here!) I asked Ms Jenna to walk us through it:

So the deal on the grab bag toys is this: when we switch from one color to another in the machines, it takes a little while to get all the old color out and the new color fully running through the system. We were, at one point, simply discarding the silicone. But as you well know, silicone is expensive and it seemed like a lot of waste. Someone (and I can’t remember who, to be honest) came up with the idea that what if while the colors were switching we poured a few toys each time & sold them at a discount on the website? That way, the silicone doesn’t go to waste and customers who are looking for a deal and don’t really care about the color can get a new toy at a great price.

I actually learned over the weekend that this isn’t a new idea – the Dum Dums lollipop people do the same thing with their “Mystery Flavor” lollipops. (Thanks, Food Network!) So there’s precedent, obviously. I like to think of the Grab Bag stuff as the Mystery Flavor of Tantus.

Any color that we currently have in production, therefore, can show up in a Grab Bag item. Some of them are very pretty, purely by accident, and some I am less thrilled about. It’s very much luck of the draw. We do try to pull out anything that looks really hideous, and most of the time people are happy when they get their toy.

tl:dr – Super high-quality, affordable silicone sex toys, available in some of their most popular styles, wonderful for people who do not care about color.

You might very well get an awesome color. You might get a color that leaves a lot to be desired. But what do you want? You can’t have them both. If you care that much about color, then you pay full/sale price and get the exact thing you want. You lose all right to be disappointed by the color if you go the Grab Bag route. Me, personally, I’d be happy with the grab bag way of life. And I am. I got sent a random selection of Grab Bag items, not meant to impress or scare me, but something that is representative what they would give to any ole person who orders. Am I less than crazy about the tan-colored Ryder? Yeah. Would it prevent my ass from enjoying it? Nope.

When you compare the prices, you just can’t beat this. Shown below is an Echo Vibrator, a Vamp dildo, a Ripple Small plug and a Ryder plug. Grab Bag price = $90.96. Retail price = $183.96. So that’s, on average, saving you 50% at least.

The Ripple is black, and the Ryder is a tan color. Vamp is shown in a really festive red color, and Echo is ….I swear it’s subtly two-toned. It could be my eyes playing tricks, but it looks like the purple haze up top is just a hair lighter than at the bottom.

If you’re hoping, or even expecting, to get nothing but pretty colors? To get something in blue? It may not happen. As Jenna said, it’s just random. It changes all the time. You have to be very ZEN about the whole experience. It’s your choice, though. Save money and get affordable silicone sex toys or get particular colors and pay more. They may in the future add more styles to the Grab Bag options. You won’t see O2 styles, because of how they have to be made. But I think that the current selection of styles really does cover a lot. You’ve got a moderately-sized dildo on a stick, a vibrating dildo with a lot of texture, a decently girthy dildo (Vamp), a toy for true anal beginners (the Ripple Small), a great little beginners prostate toy, and still two more butt toys including the ever-popular Ryder, the Leisure which is great for pegging or those who don’t like girth and texture, or the Silk Large which is a step up from the Leisure.

*If you’re buying Tantus, you’re helping to keep my site alive. I don’t get much in affiliate money anymore since ditching EF, so your support is exponentially appreciated if you choose to shop through my links. If you do choose to buy from my links, it might be best to clear out the cached cookies for Tantus. Thanks much!

There’s a couple of Stand-to-Pee devices out there for vulva-bodied people. The most visible ones are those being sold by sex toy retailers who recognize that it’s not just something to help you take a pee in the woods without ruining your shoes. The ones that most will know the names of are the P Style, and GoGirl. I’ve read reviews on them but words only go so far, really.

It’s kinda something you need to see (or just buy it and try it yourself, in the bathtub). Maggie Mayhem is a blogger, does porn, is a feminist, an activist, kinky, and wonderfully nerdy. She’s been in my periphery radar for quite a while but her recent post on reducing rape culture in the BDSM community and all the posts it spawned brought her into focus more. And I quickly found her porn site that she does with her partner, Ned, called MeetTheMayhems. Something that was on the front page, and happened to be a free clip (their porn isn’t free) was an explicit how-to video of Maggie showing how to use the P Style. AWESOME. Maggie’s so friggin cute n saucy that it takes it from instruction video to fun video. There’s a few other toy review videos that are free to the general public; so far it’s just Ned, but I’m not complaining!

To view it, and you really should if you’ve never tried a STP device and are curious, first visit their site through the front door and proclaim your age. Then click my link here that goes directly to the P Style video. If you just click to the video first, the site kicks you back to the age verification and then to the homepage, instead of where you originally wanted to go.

As “pay sites” go, this one is unique. Maggie and Ned aren’t just posting porn, they’re sharing explicit video reviews, posts on various topics both sexy and sexy-nerdy, and the only part you pay for is the actual porn – and it’s really reasonable. They’re a unique couple with a unique site and I quite like them both.

Recently I bought a bunch of cases from Vera, owner of For Your Nymphomation. My lot are from the older style of cases, so the zipper closure that locks isn’t as awesome as it is currently – but I don’t have kids or nosy parents/roommates, so I didn’t care.

One of the things I love about the Hide n Seek case is the material – which, sadly, Vera is discontinuing. It’s the textured black. This isn’t the typical faux leather, it’s a more stiff, bumpy matte-finish vinyl. (Shown here in a smaller case than the one I got) Masculine, really. But I love it because it’s very stiff and sturdy and I know my somewhat-delicate bullet vibe is safe in there to get tossed around my big work bag and not get broken. Stuffed in that case is the bullet vibe I reviewed recently (the battery pack is bigger, other bullet vibes I’ll have more room), 5 AA’s, my Pocket Rocket, and another tiny little vibe. If I remove the other stuff, I can fit in just the bullet and the wooden dildo, plus spare batteries.

My Size Does Matter case is actually being used for my digital camera accessories like memory cards, the usb stick card reader, and spare batteries.

The Foot Long case is being used by my partner for his few toys – it’s overkill, not like anything he has is a foot long! But I wanted something bigger rather than smaller. I got this one in the purple and it’s really nice! Soft faux flexible leather in a realistic faux-leather look and it’s a pretty dark purple.

Big Foot is nice – firm sides, straps inside for things, straps on the lid. I haven’t truly put it to proper use, as most of my toys stay in the Adult Toybox XL, but I did test to make sure it’ll fit the Hitachi – and it does. Barely, the cord end pushes the material out just a smidge to get it in there, but it fits.

I’m not kissing Vera’s ass here, lol, I really do like these cases. I’d get more of the Hide n Seek if I had the spare money, and not for sex toy purposes! It’s a great size for a lot things. I think these are better than the Devine brand, and there’s a ton more sizes and options. When you go to the average online sex toy retailer, the For Your Nymphomation cases are really the only ones worth looking at. If you have ANY reason whatsoever to need your privacy – these cases are the way to go.

The discount for my readers (use code DangerousFYN at checkout) is still valid until I hear otherwise, so take advantage of it! Also check out her sale page, there’s a brown Foot Long case that’s perfect for a guy, or if you simply like brown “leather”. She’s not going to be making cases in this color any more, so get on it!

ETA 3/2011: Since this post was originally published, my opinions of the site and the company and it’s owner have changed drastically. I no longer support them, and no longer would recommend that you shop there. Want more info? Email me, the button is over there at the top of the sidebar!

I recently answered the call to become a reviewer for !. I emailed over my reviewer “resume”, and was promptly sent details and the site address. I decided to review for this company because they offer such a wide selection – a great mix of all sorts of sex toys plus an expansive BDSM section. The site is under a revamp, and improving every day. I know that quite a lot of my readers may not have heard about this site, so I didn’t want to just jump right into reviewing stuff for a company you’ve not heard of!

What you’ll find at the “front of the store”, are a bunch of categories which lead you into an informative catalogue, of sorts. The “Vibrators” category tells you, in general at first, a little about vibrators. From there you can see information broken down into each different sort of vibrator. Eggs and Bullets, Rabbit Vibrators, Clitoral Vibrators, etc. At the home page is also sections for their blog, containing press releases which may talk about sextoys in the media , toy reviews which may even contain how-to videos, and other bloggy stuff.

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Onto the shopping! I’m telling you, the content of this store is what drew me in. I’ve found that quite a number of the bigger name sellers have only a small BDSM section, or it contains mostly stuff for beginners. There’s furniture of all ranges (you could outfit a complete dungeon here), Liberator shapes, a huge line of paddles and floggers and whips, hehe.

While at first glance their stock may seem overwhelming, keep in mind that if something comes in multiple colors, each one is listed separately (for now, this could change). For example, in Eggs and Bullet Vibrators, there are 20 pages! But look at page 1 – looks like 35 items, however, there’s quite a few there that are repeats of the same vibe just in different colors. I like the variety of brands, too. Someone (BBG) said I was being too much of a “toy snob”, heh, because I can’t stand pretty much anything made by California Exotics and I won’t use toys that are made of jelly/rubber. While ! does of course carry these, they also have huge lines of items from Vibratex, Fun Factory, LELO, Njoy, Tantus, etc.

While they don’t have a category yet solely for their silicone toys, you can go to the advanced search and select silicone or just pthalates-free materials. Now, a search for silicone does turn up things that are Sil-a-gel, so it’s not perfect. Yes, sil-a-gel is pthalates free, but it isn’t silicone because it’s still semi-porous. So the description for one particular toy says that it is sil-a-gel but the properties put there by the site call it silicone. Nitpicking, maybe. But it’s important to me.

More on searching – The advanced search feature has a ton of options to narrow things down, but it’s not fully functional yet – for example, a search for a toy of “powerful” style of vibrations, for use on a straight female, stimulating the clitoris…..one of the many many items returned is a male masturbator “realistic vagina”…..I’m pretty sure that is the exact OPPOSITE of my search terms, lol.

The site is still under a revamp, it just takes time. I’m really looking forward to reviewing for them – my first batch of review items? Not one toy!!! I’ve got some rope, a flogger, a slapper-paddle, and a toy storage item. Woo!

This site not only is fun (selling sex toys, woot!) but informative. It’s a really good place for women to go to make a more informed decision when buying their toys. After all, we don’t like spending $40 and upwards on a toy that we end up hating.

So I’m an affiliate of this site now, which means, if you wanna buy a sex toy click on that link or the banner down there on the side and I get monetary credit for it.

If you want help in buying your girl a sex toy or something for the both of you to use, I’ll be able to help as I’ll be reviewing toys from them a few times a month.

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